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But mostly we have $42 million worth of something baseball hasn’t quite seen before, maybe a new age Clemente, maybe a 22-year-old player who won’t be able to get out of his own way long enough to be all that he can be.

Perhaps a coach killer. Perhaps a Hall of Famer.

Go ahead. Try and categorize this young Cuban. He defies that as surely as he seems bent on defying pretty much every baseball covenant out there. Bench him for being late and then when asked to pinch hit, he’ll slam a home run.

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Exactly how do you manage that?

In less than half a major league season, he has electrified Dodger fans and challenged L.A. manager Don Mattingly, all this while the team has been frequently fabulous and appears headed for post-season play.

He’s a terror at the plate, athletic and raw in the field. At the same time, traditionalists are at their tut-tutting best, suggesting that all the wondrous things Puig does won’t compensate in the playoffs if he won’t slide into second to break up a double play or hit the cut-off man.

It’s an interesting debate; at what point is a baseball player so productive at the plate that a team has to be willing to look the other way on a few frustrating idiosyncracies?

NFL teams were certainly willing to do it with Moss as long as he was productive and could stretch the field. He could take a few plays off here and there as long as he could one-hand a 60-yard bomb in the corner of the end zone over three defenders.

The Blue Jays, so far, have been willing to overlook the youthful exuberance of Lawrie that has on occasion rubbed teammates and coaches the wrong way, not to mention umpires. His brilliant play of late at third base and relative calmness amid the storm surrounding the ballclub seems to suggest he’s starting to get it and the team’s patience is paying off.

With Puig, the Dodgers are trying to stop the stallion from bucking with mixed success, making him the single most intriguing player to watch in baseball’s post-season for the sheer unpredictability of what his impact will be.

Miggy Cabrera has been the happy side of the sport this season, Ryan Braun and the odious A-Rod the troubled side.

Puig, meanwhile, has been a little of both the happy and the troubled side, disciplined twice in the last week alone for the way he goes about his business.

Hitting .346 with an OPS of .963 in 76 games, of course, would cause many teams to look the other way.

Apparently, not the Dodgers and not Mattingly.

Unhappy with the way Puig was conducting himself in the field after striking out on Wednesday night, Mattingly yanked him from the game and replaced him with Skip Schumacher, explaining later that Schumacher gave the team “the best chance to win.”

This isn’t something new, or something that’s suddenly come to a head. It’s been going on all season as the Dodgers try to tame their Wild Thing and Puig seems intent on stretching his legs with his newfound fame, freedom and wealth in America.

The aim of the Dodgers seems to be to head this off at the pass and stop the evolution of a new Manny Ramirez.

Here’s the problem, however. L.A. was nine games under .500 before Puig, and with him in the starting lineup they’re 30 (!) games over.

That seems to suggest that even with his, ahem, unique approach at times, the Dodgers are far better off with him than without him, and the good things he does far outweigh the negative impact of his quirkier ways.

Is the game going to change that much in the post-season that somehow that equation is going to change drastically?

Traditionalists say yes. Others wonder about that, and suggest stars often play by different rules than less talented teammates.

Mattingly, meanwhile, seems to have the support of Magic Johnson and Dodger ownership on how he’s handing Puig, but then again, he doesn’t have a contract beyond this season.

So that sounds like we’ll go along with you on this one, skip, but you better win.

“He’s an energetic player with such passion,” Mattingly told FOX Sports.

“I don’t want to break this kid’s spirit. I like him playing the way he plays. But like with anybody else, I just want him to play intelligently.”

A reasonable request. We’ll see if Puig will listen. And if he doesn’t, or can’t, how far will the Dodgers go in making him toe the line?

Last season, the Washington Nationals shut down Stephen Strasburg to save his arm, and given the state of that team this season, they may be wondering today why they did that.

The Dodgers, with ownership having invested an incredible amount of money in the team, have a chance to win it all. They surely hope the Dodger Way won’t mean trying to accomplish that without their young star.

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